Month: April 2011

Parkeology was on location at Disneyland Paris the other week. We discovered things both expected and surprising. The PR photos make it look so, well, magical! Disneyland Paris features Discoverlyland in lieu of Tomorrowland. It is meant to serve as an ageless look into the future as imagined by Jules Verne. One surprise came at […]

Like many of you, I’ve ridden Soarin’ a number of times. I’m talking Peyton-Manning-to-Marvin-Harrison number of times. Cher-Cosmetic-Procedures number of times. Maybe not Rednecks-on-COPS number of times, but certainly Jessica-Simpson-Attempts-Fourth-Grade number of times. I’m telling you, I can recite every line of dialog in the movie word for word (that’s a little Soarin’ joke. Some […]

The most evil buzzword in the theme park industry today is “interactive” (followed closely by “guest experience,” and rounded out by “Potter-killer.”) I’m a traditionalist, darn it, and I prefer my theme parks shaken, not stirred. If I have to hear about another “living character initiative” or “NextGen project,” I think I’m going to have […]

I’ve never been fond of the boneyard aspect of Hollywood Studios. A bunch of old movie vehicles rotting under the sun always depressed me. It’s one thing when they’re just random street cars from some forgotten Christian Slater movie. But it’s something else entirely when they’re iconic vehicles like the Indiana Jones tank from Indiana […]

Audio Animatronics have evolved a lot since their debut as multicultural stereotypes. Jose, Michael, Pierre, and Fritz were pretty darn cool. They could move. They could talk. They could do both at the same time (something Al Gore never learned). But even Isaac Asimov couldn’t imagine what they’d do next. Answer: Activate Skynet. We’re a […]

Apparently, Pixar’s success has nothing to do with their awesome stories. Google (no pun intended) the phrase “Pixar eyes” and you will find scores of tutorials, white papers, literary criticisms, journal articles, and Masters theses — all dealing with the awesomeness of Pixar eyes. You’d think that the entire art form begins and ends with […]